


siúil, a rún: éalaigh liom

by Kells



Series: siúil, a rún: the Cold War AAU [3]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: AAU, Alternate Universe, Cold War, F/M, Female Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-13 17:05:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9133282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kells/pseuds/Kells
Summary: the second time Tasha and Maria Stevens meet goes a little better than the first- which isn't saying much.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> my last attempt at fic for 2016 is, maybe, a sort of return to my roots? it's nothing very special but I do enjoy this version of them so I hope some of you will as well. Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2017 will be weird and wonderful and ENTIRELY FREE of horrible diversions that really need to be retconned whether that works in real life or not. <3 <3 
> 
> this takes place within a year of red is the rose, and a few months before Steph and Clint meet in siúil, a rún

Stretching out on the ratty couch in the corner of the room, Natasha shut her eyes at last. In all likelihood Yasha would grumble in the morning that she should have shoved him over and claimed her share of the bed, but she was loathe to disturb him while he was finally sleeping almost soundly. She relaxed gradually, consciously matching her breathing to Yasha’s by way of keeping track of the way he was still shuddering faintly, and was only moments away from drifting off herself when she heard the rattle of someone else’s key in the lock. She had both of her Marakovs pointed at the intruder well before Maria Stevens shut the door behind her.

“Easy, sweetheart. It’s just me.”

“I’m _not_ your sweetheart,” Natasha hissed, but reluctantly lowered her pistols as Stevens shed her coat and scarf like she had never doubted her welcome in what was _supposed_ to be a Soviet safehouse.“Why are you here?”

For a moment, the American looked surprised- even hurt- but of course precious Anya would hold herself above such petty squabbling. She jerked her head to indicate Natasha’s trainer, still curled up on the bed.

“How’s he doing?”

“Fine.”

It was almost true, Tasha told herself- or it would be in a day or two. “We _don’t_ need your-”

“Steph?”

Agent Stevens smiled; the sudden sweetness in her expression softened her face almost beyond recognition.

“Hey, soldier.”

Yasha smiled like he couldn’t help it, but his glassy, troubled eyes sought Tasha’s before he spoke. For one cruel second she was tempted to lie, just to see what would happen- but he trusted her so completely, even like this, and Tasha never intended to do anything to change that. She nodded, not too stiffly, and did her best to look pleased for him.

“She’s really here, Yasha.”

She tried not to relish the way Agent Stevens flinched. Her trainer’s smile was only for Natasha, but by the time the American had crossed the room to sit with him Tasha wasn’t sure either one of them remembered she was even in the room. Glaring sullenly at the pair of them, Tasha sank back against the threadbare cushions and watched her trainer press his face into his rival’s shoulder like he was trying to breathe her in.

“Steph,” he sighed, sagging against the American with tired, grateful relief. “My Stephanie, thank God.”  

“Right here,” Stevens assured him, somewhat redundantly in Tasha’s opinion. “I’ve got you, okay?”

Tasha bit her cheek, hard, to avoid pointing out that _she_ had been the one to hold her trainer’s hand through the violent retching, devastating nightmares and one terrifyingly close encounter with Aleksander Lukin that preceded Yasha’s present fatigue. Stevens  laughed quietly when Yasha dropped clumsily so he was lying down again, sprawling across the bed with his head in her lap and one arm thrown haphazardly over her legs.  

“Sure, I guess you can have that half of me if you want.”

She set her gloves down next to the knife Yasha kept by the bed, smoothing her fingers through his hair as he closed his eyes with a contented kind of murmur. “G’night, Cap’n Curly-Head.”  

“I’m not.”

Yasha turned his face to frown up at her, almost childlike in his resentment. “s like straw now- goddamn ‘Lexei.”

Tasha tried not to think about how different he sounded in English. Stevens smiled tolerantly, still sifting the offending strands with the same quick fingers that had so nearly been the death of him just months earlier.

“It’s not so bad. Makes you look like your Gary, maybe.”

Yasha looked almost shy for a moment.

“You think?”

“A little. Your eyes are nicer.”

He paused, considering it, but then shook his head firmly.

“First day we get outta this ‘m gonna fix it.”

Stevens let her hand slip lower to caress his face instead of his hair.

“If that’s what you want. Hush, a chéadsearc.”

“A chroí.”

His voice, hushed with something like wonder, was barely more than a vibration against her thigh. “M’ria with the nut-brown hair.”

“That’s me,” Stevens promised, angling the hand still resting mostly over his brow as if to shield his eyes from the light. Yasha seemed perfectly comfortable.

“Y’gonna stay t’night?”  

Stevens had to clear her throat before she could reply.

“All weekend if our Tony means what he says.”

He smiled a little, but her thumb caught a tear before it slid down his cheek.

“I miss you all the time, Steph.”

Tasha glanced away reflexively before Maria bent her head to kiss him gently. Her throat wasn’t actually tight, she decided, and if her eyes were watering it was only because of how dry it got in the winter.

“I’m right here,” the American said again; this time Tasha had a clearer idea of why she felt it had to be repeated. “Hush, a Shéamais.”

“Tá tú anseo liom,” Yasha murmured seriously. Maria gave a small, shaky smile he couldn’t see anyway.

“Go díreach, a rún.”

She seemed content to stay like that indefinitely, still speaking to him in the language Tasha had only ever heard from her trainer before while she alternated between rubbing his neck and smoothing her fingers through his hair or down his arm as he went slowly limp across her lap.    

“I’m sorry.”

It took Natasha longer than it should have to realise that Maria Stevens was speaking to her directly for the first time since Yasha had said her name.

“Pardon?”

The American was regarding Tasha with a cautious kind of understanding in her eyes. When she spoke again it was in Russian, perfectly correct but much more practised than Yasha’s casual brogue.

“I can’t imagine what this must be like for you.”

It was all Natasha could do to nod. Her trainer’s wife smiled sadly. “For what it’s worth he never meant to trap you in the middle like this.”

“I know _that_.”

It came out more defensive than Tasha had intended. She hurried to say something else before Maria took offence. “I don’t mind.”

Again, it wasn’t exactly surprising that Yasha’s beloved wife was too tactful to say out loud that she couldn't see how that could be true. Tasha scowled, mostly at herself, and tried to speak in a calm, grown-up kind of voice.

“Of course I wish it could be easier for him, I mean, but I’ll help as long as he lets me.”

That came out exactly like she meant it to, cool and assured because every word was true. Maria’s smile seemed to warm.

“He knows that. He talks about you all the time, you know. I’ve never seen him so proud of anyone.”

It was exactly what Tasha hadn’t known she needed to hear. She glanced away, hoping the evening shadows would be enough to cover the way her cheeks were flaming, and found herself watching Yasha’s fingers curl possessively in the hem of his wife’s knee-length skirt.

“He’s so much calmer with you.”

“I can’t-”

Maria’s voice cracked; she had to try again. “It’s too dangerous when you’re in Moscow. If Lukin ever got wind of it-”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Tasha interrupted, holding the American’s gaze for the first time. “It’s just- I wish he could relax like this.”

She didn’t know how to say out loud that she’d never known anyone who deserved true peace of mind more than Yasha Kolchak, or how unfair it was that _this_ was what counted as an easy night for him.

“What language was that, earlier?”

Maria looked surprised; she frowned in concentration, searching for the word in Russian.

“Irish.”

Whatever Tasha had been expecting, that wasn’t it.

“Why do you speak Irish?”

Maria seemed much younger when she was smiling than Agent Stevens did in action. Upon reflection, Tasha realised, that was true of Yasha too.

“Our parents were schoolmates in Kilkee. My mam and his.”

Of course he hadn’t told her that- from what they’d said last time it seemed likely Yasha hadn’t even known himself when he’d stepped out of the mist to pluck Tasha out of Wassily Karpov’s greasy clutches. She barely noticed that she’d come over to kneel by her trainer until her fingers brushed his bright hair back. Maria’s own hand stilled at Yasha’s shoulder, but she didn’t come out and say explicitly that she didn’t want anyone else touching her husband while she was there to see to him herself.

“I think it looks fine.”

Maria scowled just like Yasha had before.

“I don’t think he cares that much how it looks. It’s one more thing he’s not allowed to choose, you know?”

She sighed helplessly, fingers clenching over his arm like she was afraid a team of KGB operatives might  materialise between them and take Yasha away by force. “You guys get so little say in anything even without goddamn Lukin deciding he’s better off blonde for no reason.”

Except that it _wasn’t_ for no reason, Tasha was beginning to realise, so much as to prevent his own wife from realising how close she’d come to killing her husband in cold blood. She tossed her head, then reached round to tuck her hair back into a tidy bun by way of distracting herself from the threat of tears.

“What’s it really like?”

“Dark. Soft like silk. In the sun you can see the lightest bits are nearly red.”

The notes of love and loss in Maria’s voice struck Natasha as very like the tone in which her trainer usually spoke of his bright star. “He used to wear it longer, too.”

She nodded; he’d said something like that once or twice.

“Maybe he will again, after he fixes it. _First day we get outta this_ , like he said.”

Maria seemed quite taken aback by Tasha’s attempt at her trainer’s New York accent, but the half-smile tugging at her lips seemed more genuine than anything they’d managed up to that point.

“Maybe he will,” she agreed, bending as if compelled to touch her lips carefully to his still-flushed cheek. For the first time, the proof of their long-time, long-term intimacy didn’t make Tasha want to claw out her eyes, or Maria’s.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she whispered, no less surprised than the American to find she really meant it. "It’s good to know _you’re_ not just another lie Aleksander tells to keep him in line.”

There was a silence, short but suffocating. For a long moment Natasha was sure she’d misread the interaction entirely- then Maria, who was also Anya, and _also_ apparently Steph, inclined her head with a formal sort of grace.

“Thanks. You should get some rest if you can- you must be exhausted, Tasha.”

She was, Natasha found she could admit, and it wasn’t like her trainer could have been in safer hands.

“Look after him,” she murmured, adopting Yasha's sternest whisper, and smirked a little as she turned away before Maria could react to the very idea of anyone daring to tell  _her_ that.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and then the same again from Steph's point of view!  
> totally unplanned second part because...why not?

Stephanie opened the door to find Natalia Romanova already glaring at her over a pair of the ugly Soviet pistols she would never have let her husband use except in an emergency. At least the girl was good at her job- her aim was true enough, her grip as steady as her gaze, and she was obviously taking care to stay between her unconscious instructor and any potential threat.  

“Easy, sweetheart. It’s just me.”

Steph cringed a bit as Natalia’s eyes narrowed further. She hadn’t meant to say that, exactly- in her head she’d been about to call the girl by her name, but then she’d caught sight of her boy all hunched over in pain across the room from them and got distracted at the least opportune part of that sentence.

“I’m not _your_ sweetheart. Why are you here?”

The first point seemed fair enough, but that anyone could ever have to ask what right she had to be with her husband was more than Steph knew how to handle. Instead of defending herself, she nodded towards the bed and hoped they could take things from there.

“How’s he doing?”

“Fine.”

Natalia was still talking, presumably trying to defend that obviously shaky position, but Stephanie’s attention was entirely absorbed by the bleary, hopeful eyes suddenly fixed on her face.

“Steph?”

He’d dragged himself upright, quickly if not quite steadily, but seemed to know better than to try to stand. Steph’s voice caught in her throat as she offered a mental prayer of thanksgiving for the recognition in her husband’s voice.

“Hey, soldier.”

Bucky’s smile was genuine, but he shot Tasha an imploring glance which Steph had no way to interpret until the younger woman nodded a little reluctantly.

“She’s really here, Yasha.”

He should never, never have to ask. Steph took a deep breath, determined not to cry while it could affect him, and pulled her husband close as he collapsed gratefully against her.

“Steph.”

His lips brushed her neck, absolutely tender. “My Stephanie, thank God.”  

The tension in his hands explained the relief in his eyes, and both together told Steph all too clearly what the week she’d missed had been like for him.

“Right here,” she promised, hanging onto him for dear life. She’d worried about hurting him, the first time or two, but trial and error suggested that Steph’s time was better spent making sure he knew exactly what was real.  “I’ve got you, okay?”

Bucky pressed closer for a second, squeezing her gently, then let go abruptly to flop unceremoniously across Steph’s lap, stretching out with his cheek flush to her thigh.

“Mine,” he announced like she might not have realised, and kissed her knee as if to stake his claim. Stephanie found herself giggling like a schoolgirl, utterly charmed by his finding the energy to flirt like a teenager while he was still shuddering from the after-effects of the Red Room’s bloody programme.

“Sure, I guess you can have that half of me if you want.”

She had already shucked her gloves off, and without even thinking about it slid her fingers into his hair by way of claiming her own preferred ground. Possibly she should insist that he eat something- the way the serum worked things could go very badly wrong if they let him wait too long- but he was already halfway to asleep, and very nearly comfortably. “G’night, Cap’n Curly-Head.”  

“I’m not,” Bucky objected at once, injured and annoyed in roughly equal measures. “s like straw now- goddamn ‘Lexei.”

If she hadn’t had a whole lapful of convalescent Winter Soldier on her hands Stephanie was pretty sure she’d have been sorely tempted to shoot something, but seeing as she did it seemed more urgent to soothe the hurt in his voice than to seek and destroy Aleksander Lukin for treating Captain Kolchak as a dear friend mostly as a means of keeping Captain Barnes well and truly out of sight.  

“It’s not so bad,” she offered, letting her nails catch against his scalp the way he liked and grinning to herself when his eyelids fluttered. “Makes you look like your Gary, maybe.”

She hadn’t thought of it as any kind of test, but felt some of the tension in her frame leech away when Bucky smiled, almost bashful at the thought of having anything in common with his childhood hero. It really was mostly over, then- if he could place their friends from before the war without any kind of help then he was very nearly in his own mind again.

“You think?”

“A little. Your eyes are nicer.”

She was almost sure Bucky was blushing by the time he shook his head decisively.

“First day we get outta this ‘m gonna fix it.”

Steph trailed her fingertips along his cheekbone and promised herself that she’d dye his hair in stripes or polka-dots herself if that was what he needed once they were done.

“If that’s what you want. Hush, a chéadsearc.”

She tensed, realising her mistake too late to take it back- but they were far enough along that Bucky only smiled faintly and switched obligingly into Irish too.  

“A chroí.”

He smiled dreamily, mostly to himself. “M’ria with the nut-brown hair.”

“That’s me,” Steph promised, then pressed her palm to his brow like she was trying to block out the light. It didn’t actually accomplish anything, as far as she could tell, but he’d found it comforting under much more stressful circumstances. Bucky seemed to recognise the implicit suggestion, too.

“Y’gonna stay t’night?”  

She had to swallow hard, again, to keep both hurt and anger out of her voice. Neither was his fault, of course, but somehow he never seemed to grasp how completely Steph didn’t blame him for any part of their forced separation.

“All weekend if our Tony means what he says.”

She gave a tiny hiss of protest as a single tear slipped past his dark eyelashes. Because he couldn’t help but give her what she needed, Bucky murmured an explanation before she had to ask.

“I miss you _all the time,_ Steph.”

She hardly had to say she knew damn well what that was like. Deciding that she didn’t care as much as she had imagined what Natalia Romanova thought of them, Steph gave into temptation long enough to kiss her husband fiercely.

“I’m right here,” she told him again, vowing all over again that she’d take Lukin on herself if that was what it took to make it so he never had to wonder again. “Hush, a Shéamais.”

“Tá tú anseo liom,” he agreed solemnly. He was teasing again, Steph realised belatedly, reversing the script that had accompanied countless whispered bedside conversations from before their fateful run-in with Howard Stark.

“Go díreach, a rún.”

She kissed him again, because she could, and kept on playing with his hair as he drowsed. At some point she realised that she’d started reciting a rosary almost by reflex, which was strange because even as children they’d never done that in Irish, but finished what she’d started partly because it was what her mother would have done and partly because it had been too damn long since they’d had enough space, or time, or peace of mind, to pray together like they had done all their lives.

A quiet cough from across the room reminded Steph abruptly that she wasn’t alone with her husband- and that she wasn’t the only one for whom the boy on the bed so often felt like her main reason for ever getting anything done at all.

“I’m sorry.”

At first there was no answer- then the younger girl startled almost to attention as she realised Steph was talking to her and not to Bucky.  

“Pardon?”

Hoping to show that she wasn’t some kind of evil stepmother trying to cut her out altogether, Steph switched to Russian in the hope of making her husband’s student feel a bit more comfortable.  

“I can’t imagine what this must be like for you.”

Natalia didn’t seem to know what to make of that. Maybe there wasn’t much _to_ make of it when all was said and done, but Steph knew- maybe more than Natalia did herself- how much the girl meant to her husband. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell her that Bucky had refused outright to leave Moscow without her, but she wasn’t entirely sure it was her place to give that much away just yet. “For what it’s worth he never meant to trap you in the middle like this.”

“I know _that_.”

Steph felt oddly reassured by the indignation in Natalia’s voice. “I don’t mind.”

The Russian girl looked very fierce for a moment, fighting some kind of internal battle that ended when she squared her shoulders and met Steph’s eyes, intentionally, for the first time since Bucky had raised his head.

“Of course I wish it could be easier for him, I mean, but I’ll help as long as he lets me.”

That much, Steph had already heard from Bucky himself.

“He knows that,” she ventured, assuming Natalia would be more interested in her husband’s good opinion than in hers. “He talks about you all the time, you know. I’ve never seen him so proud of anyone.”

Natalia had to look away, swallowing hard as her eyes fixed on her instructor as if she, too, found comfort in knowing he was safe for the time being.

“He’s so much calmer with you.”

The truth of it hurt like a knife wound.

“I can’t-”

Or he couldn’t, or it couldn’t be arranged no matter how many risks one or both of them was willing to take to make it happen. “It’s too dangerous when you’re in Moscow. If Lukin ever got wind of it-”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Natalia murmured; for once, it seemed, she hadn’t been trying to imply any kind of accusation. “It’s just- I wish he could relax like this.”

Steph dropped her eyes, watching her own fingers trace a little Celtic cross over his shoulder. It was crazy- cruel, even- to think that _this_ was what counted as a good night for Lukin’s favoured team.  

“What language was that, earlier?”

It wasn’t the follow-up Steph had been anticipating; she took a second to try and find the words Bucky had supplied as if he’d spoken Russian all his life.

“Irish.”

If it sounded defiant, Natalia was too surprised to take offence.

“Why do you speak Irish?”

Steph wondered absently what the other girl’s first guess had been.

“Our parents were schoolmates in Kilkee. My mam and his.”

She saw Natalia’s brow crease as she tried to make sense of that, but she didn’t come out and ask what or where that was supposed to be. Instead, Natalia crossed the room- like she had obviously wanted to do right from the beginning- and came to rest on her knees next to the bed. Steph was still wondering how petty it would be not to invite her to sit with them when the younger girl reached out to stroke her instructor’s hair tentatively. Steph felt her jaw clench, but decided it wasn’t necessarily her place to interfere- yet.

“I think it looks fine.”

“I don’t think he cares that much how it looks,” Stephanie snapped, but softened both her face and her voice with an effort as the younger girl seemed to wilt a little in response to her anger. “It’s one more thing he’s not allowed to choose, you know?”

And there were _so_ many of those, even without taking Nick Fury’s bloody agenda into account. “You guys get so little say in anything even without goddamn Lukin deciding he’s better off blonde for no reason.”

Natalia seemed genuinely discomfited, fidgeting uncharacteristically before turning to pull her hair up into an almost unrealistically tidy bun.

“What’s it really like?”

Steph wouldn’t have answered her at all, probably, except that she recognized immediately the courage that had gone into the almost-unspoken admission that Yasha Kolchak was not, in fact, the version of their mutual dear who should get to call the shots.   

“Dark. Soft like silk. In the sun you can see the lightest bits are nearly red. He used to wear it longer, too.”

Bucky’s student smiled, still uncomfortable but obviously fond.

“Maybe he will again, after he fixes it. _First day we get outta this_ , like he said.”

The sudden switch, not only to English but to Natalia’s best effort at a Brooklyn accent, caught Steph quite unawares. Somehow, it hadn’t really registered that the KGB’s finest could have anything like a real sense of humour, let alone such an obvious devotion to Steph’s husband.

“Maybe he will.”

And then they’d never, _never_ , have to deal with this again. Steph bent her head to kiss her boy again as if to seal that deal all over again.

“I’m glad you’re here.”

Natalia looked like she hadn’t meant to say that, but she didn’t try to take it back. "It’s good to know you’re not just another lie Aleksander tells to keep him in line.”

Given time, Steph thought, she could almost see herself feeling genuinely glad that this girl was the one who had her husband’s back when she couldn’t be there.

“Thanks. You should get some rest if you can- you must be exhausted, Tasha.”

She wondered if Natalia would refuse, just on principle, but she just nodded after one last long look at her instructor.  

“Look after him.”

She turned her back before Steph could see her face, but there was a lightness in her step that had definitely not been there before.

“Idiot,” she grumbled, easing Bucky over so she could lie with him instead of acting as some kind of headboard. She curled around her boy before the change could freak him out, settling with her cheek against his chest just like they were used to. “How can you be raising this girl all Brooklyn when half the time you don’t even know you want to do that?”

He was hardly likely to answer, but nuzzled closer and smiled a little in his sleep. Steph pressed a kiss to her husband's chest, and then another to his shoulder, and decided that anything more complicated than that might as well come when they’d all got some kind of rest.

**Author's Note:**

> new Irish:  
> tá tú anseo liom: you're here with me (he's teasing her, more or less, because they're so used to tá mé anseo leat)  
> go díreach: that's right  
> éalaigh liom: fly (like escape) with me


End file.
